Language and Identity

Kinds of Identity

Literacy scholar James Gee defines identity as being a certain “kind” of person—a kind developed from forces in nature (e.g., being a man); a kind authorized by positions in institutions (e.g., being a college professor); a kind discursively produced and recognized via interaction (e.g., being a charismatic person); and a kind constituted by shared experiences in the practice of affinity groups (e.g., being a Trekkie). These kinds of identities and their symbolic representations are not fixed or stable and can change over time with different life experiences. One person can possess all of these different kinds of identities, which are multiple and are not necessarily distinct; it is a matter of which identity becomes more prominent in a given time and place. The prominence of one's identity is expressed through the different ways in which language is used to reflect the rules and norms of a particular speech community. Speech communities are groups of people who share membership based on social variables such as ethnic, religious, gender, educational, economic, geographic, or professional affiliations and also practice common linguistic norms and expectations. A large part of speakers' social and linguistic competence is to know when and how to appropriately use different linguistic and behavioral repertoires that can convey their different identities.

Code Switching and Identity Positioning

In the case of monolinguals, the content and register of their speech can be altered to reflect the different norms of their affiliated speech communities. [Page 1324]For bilinguals, however, the language as well as the content and register of their languages can be modified to align themselves with particular identities and speech communities. For example, many bilinguals engage in code-switching, the concurrent use of more than one language in conversation in order to index their affiliations with different language groups and to mark their rights and obligations relative to the other speakers in the conversation. Ana Zentella's ethnography of growing up in a New York Puerto Rican community shows how the different linguistic codes existing within the community (i.e., popular Puerto Rican Spanish, Standard Puerto Rican Spanish, Spanglish, Puerto Rican English, African American Vernacular English, and the dialect of New York English) each had a specific use with specific interlocutors for specific purposes. She documents how code-switching across these linguistic varieties was necessary to express the overlap of the cultural and racial aspects of an individual's multifaceted identity as well as to signify an individual's social relations with other members in the community. Hence, it is important to recognize and value the range of linguistic resources needed to communicate the multiple and fluid nature of identities as a necessary tool to achieve social and personal goals in the linguistically and culturally diverse contexts of students today.

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